My two cents. The pity party won’t be covered here much beyond today. The politics of energy are such that the President has great powers especially with a Senate and House from the same party. That being said, don’t expect solar to advance from a policy standpoint in the future. You can expect that the predictable cuts in policies will be put into effect, namely Clean Power Plan, Paris agreement and Keystone XL. Tax reform could render the tax equity markets non-existent, assuming the economy holds. But note this. Trump voters agree with Clinton voters that more solar is good. Mining jobs in Ohio won’t be coming back because Trump is in the White House because they weren’t lost because Obama was. Solar jobs aren’t growing in Ohio because Kasich did anything positive, quite the opposite, he froze the RPS. Andrew Winston said it right, follow the money. The administration will be coal and oil heavy but as long as their CEOs are billionaires, our government will always be influenced by the sector. Focus on the States, focus on your business and your people.
Buying votes and influence. While FP&L and other Florida utilities were not able to pass horrible anti-solar policy with $26 million. In Arizona the result was different for an entry fee of $3.5 million spent by APS, their picks for the regulatory body won. Imagine that, a corporation that is supposed to work for the welfare of their customers, entrusted with a monopoly, is able to spend unlimited money to campaign for the people that will regulate them.
Free markets should be free. In Nevada, voters were asked if they wanted to end the electric utility monopoly. Dubbed question 3, backed by Switch and Las Vegas Sands, voters agreed to start the process to open the market to other suppliers. The next step is another vote in 2018 to fully implement the policy. I wonder if more of this is coming, just last week the Florida Speaker of the House said, “Free markets are either free or they are not.”
A (carbon) tax too small? I-732 in Washington was a true carbon tax of $25/ton. A tax that would go to the State and used to offset other State costs. We’ve already discussed that this policy was not supported by all environmental groups which put some groups like the Environmental Council and Sierra Club on the same side as the fossil fuel interests. It failed, so there will be no carbon tax, however small and uninspiring some felt this one was.
Earnings and market coverage. SolarCity and SunPower both had earnings yesterday after market close. With all solar companies on edge from the election, the public company struggle is real. More detailed coverage to come but expect that the SolarCity quarter was good enough to get a positive vote from the shareholders on the 17th of November and become part of Tesla.
- Huffington Post: Trump Can’t Stop The Clean Economy
- PV-Magazine: Utility APS purchases another ACC
- Reno Gazette Journal: Energy Choice Initiative passes in Nevada
- Think Progress: Washington state rejects carbon tax
- PV-Tech: Trump will kill Clean Power Plan, solar ITC next on chopping block, say finance experts
- Washington Post: Trump victory batters solar and wind stocks, bolsters coal shares
- Recharge News: Renewables frozen out of oil majors’ $1bn climate innovation fund
- CNBC: Four Obama climate-change efforts that probably will get scrapped now
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann